city, just quieted after the feverish excitement of the day was roused again, as though the burning mountain on whose hearthstone the city seemed to stand had suddenly belched out fire and brimstone in its very streets.
The next day Cortez and his suite obtained permission to visit Montezuma's palace, which was not far away. Many questions were asked and answered on both sides in this interview. Montezuma showed particular interest in the personal rank of his visitors, and soon made himself acquainted with their names and titles.
It was during these peaceful days of his stay in Mexico that Cortez made his first effort to teach the Aztecs the true faith. He always declared that this was the chief object of his visit, and he would never entrust it wholly even to the priests who accompanied him. As he was always obliged to speak through his interpreter, the Aztec girl Marina, we may suppose that her gentle manner gave a softer tone to the lecture than the zealous general would have wished. How much of the truth the newly-converted Marina could communicate to the devout and thoughtful chief we cannot say, but we know that the story of the cross is thrilling no matter how simply it may be told. No one can listen to the fact that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," without hearing the gospel in its wondrous fullness. But it is not likely that this proud soldier put the meek and lowly Saviour first in his word-picture of redemption. It was not Jesus with his compassion on the multitude, but the cross on which he died—not the salvation he purchased for a lost world, but the Church he had commissioned to proclaim it—that were most prominent in all these discussions.
